“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does!”
Olive wiped her cheeks with her palms. “If I tell Adam, he’s not going to want to collaborate with Tom anymore, and the project they’re working on is too important to him. Not to mention that he wants to move to Harvard next year, and—”
Anh snorted. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes. He told me that—”
“Ol, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s head over feet. There is no way he’ll want to move to Boston if you’re not going—and I’m sure as hell not letting you go work for this dipshit . . . What?” Her eyes darted from Olive to Malcolm, who were exchanging a long glance. “Why are you guys looking at each other like that? And why are you making your inside-joke faces?”
Malcolm sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay Anh, listen carefully. And before you ask—no, I’m not making this up. This is real life.” He took a deep breath before starting. “Carlsen and Olive never dated. They pretended so you’d believe that Olive wasn’t into Jeremy anymore—which she never was in the first place. Not sure what Carlsen was getting out of the arrangement, I forgot to ask. But halfway through the fake-dating Olive caught feelings for Carlsen, proceeded to lie to him about it, and pretended to be in love with someone else. But then . . .” He gave Olive a side glance. “Well. I didn’t want to be nosy, but judging from the fact that the other day only one bed in this hotel room was unmade, I’m pretty sure there have been some . . . recent developments.”
It was so painfully accurate, Olive had to bury her face in her knees. Just in time to hear Anh say, “This is not real life.”
“It is.”
“Nuh-uh. This is a Hallmark movie. Or a poorly written young adult novel. That will not sell well. Olive, tell Malcolm to keep his day job, he’ll never make it as a writer.”
Olive made herself look up, and Anh’s frown was the deepest she’d ever seen. “It’s true, Anh. I am so sorry I lied to you. I didn’t want to, but—”
“You fake-dated Adam Carlsen?”
Olive nodded.
“God, I knew that kiss was weird.”
She lifted her hands defensively. “Anh, I’m sorry—”
“You fake-dated Adam. Fucking. Carlsen?”
“It seemed like a good idea, and—”
“But I saw you kiss him! In the biology building parking lot!”
“Only because you forced me to—”
“But you sat on his lap!”
“Once again, you forced me to—not the coolest moment in our friendship, by the way—”
“But you put sunscreen on him! In front of at least one hundred people!”
“Only because someone put me up to it. Do you sense a pattern?”
Anh shook her head, as if suddenly appalled at her own actions. “I just—you guys looked so good together! It was so obvious from the way Adam stared at you that he was wild about you. And the opposite—you looked at him like he was the only guy on earth and then—it always seemed like you were forcing yourself to hold back on him, and I wanted you to know that you could express your feelings if you wanted to—I really thought I was helping you, and—you fake-dated Adam Carlsen?”
Olive sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry I lied. Please, don’t hate me, I—”
“I don’t hate you.”
Oh? “You . . . don’t?”
“Of course not.” Anh was indignant. “I low-key hate myself for forcing you to do all that stuff. Well, maybe not ‘hate,’ but I’d write myself a strongly worded email. And I’m incredibly flattered that you’d do something like that for me. I mean, it was misguided, and ridiculous, and needlessly convoluted, and you’re a living, breathing, rom-com trope machine, and . . . God, Ol, you’re such an idiot. But a very lovable idiot, and my idiot.” She shook her head, incredulous, but squeezed her hand on Olive’s knee and glanced at Malcolm. “Wait. Is your thing with Rodrigues real? Or are you two pretending to bone so a judge will give him custody of his recently orphaned godchildren?”
“Very real.” Malcolm’s smile was smug. “We fuck like bunnies.”
“Fantastic. Well, Ol, we’ll talk about this more. A lot more. We’ll probably only talk about the greatest fake-dating event of the twenty-first century for millennia to come, but for now we should focus on Tom, and . . . it changes nothing, whether you and Adam are together. I still think he’d want to know. I’d want to know. Ol, if the situation were inverted, if you were the one who stood to lose something and Adam had been sexually harassed—”